A question from someone ignorant about a DM "Red Flag"

[CartmanTuttle]

So, over the on the DM Red Flag thread, there was a post saying that someone thought that a red flag for a DM was when they said they wanted to write a novel based on the game (paraphrasing here, bad memory+head cold does not equal good copy). I personally do not understand this, as I have had many ideas for novels where I would want to run the setting in a tabletop RPG. If anyone can help me understand the meaning behind this, I would greatly appreciate it.

[Koo Rehtorb]

The job of an author is to tell a story.

The job of a GM is not to tell a story. The job of the GM, to simplify it, is to give the players the tools with which to tell their own story. It's a big ol' red flag because the mentality that the GM is there to tell a story typically leads to some really poor GM practises.

[Zombimode]

I think the implication was that the DM had a Story in mind before the game in question was over and done which leads to the expectation for the game to be rather railroad-y in the bad Kind of way.

[CharonsHelper]

I personally do not understand this, as I have had many ideas for novels where I would want to run the setting in a tabletop RPG. If anyone can help me understand the meaning behind this, I would greatly appreciate it.

That's something else - and not really an issue. The key is that you'd want to run a game in the SETTING. That can be cool.

The issue people have is with DMs who see the player characters as little but characters in a story which they're writing, and the players as a captive audience for their story.

This can lead to the DM getting grumpy when the players do anything which goes against their plotted out story.

[CartmanTuttle]

Okay, so this has essentially boiled down to me misinterpreting what was said, and looking at it from less of a RAI perspective and more of a RAW perspective. Now that I understand, that makes me cringe a little. Even my first time DMing the point was to put the players in a world and let them make their own adventures. Of course, I took it too far in the opposite direction.

[Guizonde]

you're not the only one who misunderstood the question, at first i thought it meant "i want to dm a campaign, and write the novel based on the campaign once it's concluded", something which i'm currently doing based on the first campaign i ran with my friends. after too many problems of perspective, i decided to start from scratch and write about the "heroes" of the pc's, their precursors and my way of helping my players get acclimatised by asking them questions.

... worked a bit better that way. the way the "red flag" is to be taken, however, screams "i'm so smug i can't trust you guys to create a fun story".